Opinion: Trump seeks total control

In an interview this week with the Daily Caller, President Trump was asked who he might nominate to replace Jeff Sessions as attorney general. Trump didn’t answer, instead using the question as an opportunity to laud acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker as “a very respected man.”

Whitaker is not a very respected man. He spouts bizarre legal theories, he has careened from one failure to another in his professional and business career, and he served on the board of directors of a scam company in Florida now under criminal investigation for fraud. Even in a GOP-controlled Senate, he could never be confirmed to head the Department of Justice.

But it’s what Trump said next in that interview, unbidden, that tells us everything:

“I knew (Whitaker) only as he pertained, you know, as he was (chief of staff) with Jeff Sessions. And, um, you know, look, as far as I’m concerned this is an investigation that should have never been brought. It should have never been had.”

“It’s something that should have never been brought. It’s an illegal investigation.”

To that point in the interview, nobody had said a single word about Robert Mueller or his investigation. It was Trump who brought it up; it was Trump who directly, unequivocally linked his firing of Sessions and his appointment of Whitaker to his desire to bring the Mueller probe to an end. It was practically a confession.

It also confirms yet again why Trump’s lawyers are so fearful about allowing him to be interviewed by Mueller. If he says this to friendly reporters for a conservative outlet, what might Trump say under examination from federal prosecutors?

In fact, the very next day, Trump volunteered this on Twitter:

The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess. They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want. They are a disgrace to our Nation and don’t...

....care how many lives the ruin. These are Angry People, including the highly conflicted Bob Mueller, who worked for Obama for 8 years. They won’t even look at all of the bad acts and crimes on the other side. A TOTAL WITCH HUNT LIKE NO OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY!

There is no public indication of such disarray in the Mueller investigation, which continues to show every sign of being a highly professional, disciplined operation. If anything, Trump’s hyperbolic tweets work best as a description of his own White House. They also communicate Trump’s frustration and fear that he has not yet been able to seize control of the Justice Department and turn it into a full-fledged extension of his own paranoia, prosecuting his political enemies while protecting those who support him. But he clearly hasn’t given up the effort.

The same can be said about his efforts to control the media and dictate what they can and cannot say about him.

In court this week, Trump lawyers are trying to defend his decision to strip CNN reporter Jim Acosta of his White House press credentials. Tellingly, they have acknowledged in court that they are dropping the argument that Acosta deserved banishment because he had “laid hands” on a White House staffer. He did not, and lawyers didn’t dare press that lie before a judge when clear video evidence contradicted them.

Instead, they have argued that as president, Trump can ban any reporter he pleases from covering the White House, for any reason or for no reason. And not just anybody, but EVERYbody, and not just from the White House, but from any federal facility.

“If the president wants to exclude all reporters from the White House grounds, he has the authority to do that,” lawyers told the judge. "There doesn't need to be a reason because there's no First Amendment protection and the president has broad discretion."

That’s the America that Trump wants to create, the America that would be “great again.” It’s an America in which the checks and balances on his power have been dismantled, an America totally at odds with our history and traditions.